Airtable automation actions: Salesforce

With Salesforce automation actions you can seamlessly create or update Salesforce records directly from an Airtable base. Marketers typically use this to hand over contact or opportunity information to sales reps using Salesforce.

Setup

As a prerequisite, you will need to have an existing Salesforce account and “Record Type” configured in Salesforce.

In this article we will be setting up an automation that creates a Salesforce record whenever a new contact is created in Airtable. We’ll set up another automation that updates that same Salesforce record if the contact matches certain criteria.

To start, click on “Automations” in the upper right corner of your base. Then, click “Create a custom automation” to begin the setup process.

Create new Salesforce records

Choose a trigger

To set up a trigger to fire when a new contact is created in the “Contacts” table, select the “When a record is created” trigger. Then select the table to watch for new records (in this case, the “Contacts” table).

Run a test to make sure that the trigger step is configured correctly. With a successful test you can move on to adding an action.

Add an action

Under the trigger step, click the “Add action” button, and select the “Create record” action under the Salesforce section.

At this point, you’ll be prompted to select or connect your Salesforce account. Once your account is connected, select the Salesforce record type you want to use.

There are different options available to configure for every Salesforce record type. For our example we’ll use the “Opportunity Contact Role” record type.

Update existing Salesforce records

Choose a trigger

In order to update an existing Salesforce record, you need to choose a trigger that will find records based on conditions you can set. We recommend using the “When a record matches conditions” trigger to setup matching criteria to identify records, but you can also use other available triggers depending on your needs.

As an example, you may want the trigger to find records in the “Opportunity” table that have a status of “Qualification”.

Run a test to make sure that the trigger step is configured correctly. With a successful test you can move on to adding an action.

Add an action

Under the trigger step, click the “Add action” button, and select the “Update record” action under the Salesforce section.

At this point, you’ll be prompted to select or connect your Salesforce account. Once your account is connected, fill in the “Salesforce record ID” of the object you want to update.

You will then be able to select the fields that you want to update by clicking the Choose field button under the Update Fields section. If you select a field but leave it blank, that field will be cleared out in Salesforce.

FAQs

What type of access will Airtable have to my Salesforce account?

Airtable will only have access to the Salesforce records that the user who set up the Salesforce automation has access to.

How is data transmitted from Salesforce?

The data that we send to and receive from Salesforce’s API is transmitted securely via HTTPS and will not be used for any purpose other than the automation.

What happens to my automations if my Salesforce account gets deactivated?

If the Salesforce account for a related automation is deactivated, or disconnected, then the automation will cease to work until a new Salesforce account is connected and configured.